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Over the past 12 months, consumer inflation is up by 5 percent, the largest year-over-year gain since a similar 5 percent rise in May 1991. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25701521/)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/oil_gas2.jpgAP - July 16, 2008

Washington - Consumer prices shot up in June at the fastest pace in 26 years, with two-thirds of the surge blamed on soaring energy prices.

The Labor Department reported the Consumer Price Index jumped 1.1 percent last month, much more than had been expected. Energy prices rocketed upward by 6.6 percent, reflecting big gains for gasoline, home heating oil and natural gas.

The big rise in prices cut deeply into consumers’ earning power with average weekly wages, after adjusting for inflation, dropping by 0.9 percent in June, the biggest monthly decline since 1984... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25701521/

That's big (and bad) news, even if you believe the BLS' very optimistic numbers. Reality is usually several points worse than what they report.

Back about 6 months ago someone posted here a link to John Williams "Shadow Government Statistics". This economic watch dog stated with 100 % assurity, and backed up what he said with impressive documentation, that "government data is biased in politically correct directions and have increasingly diverged from common experience and reality since the mid 1980's. Inflation and unemployment reports are routinely understated, while employment and other economic data are overstated, deliberately". In short, we are not being fed facts but are being painted a picture. Now that things are getting much worse, it is becoming increasingly difficult to paint a "nice" picture.

He also showed, thru a 2004 study by the Kaiser Foundation, that "the American electorate was found to be to be completely and utterly out of touch with the reality of the economic indicators". That was in 2004. Imagine what it is like now!

I have mentioned in a number of threads here in the past that our country cannot even hope for our dismal and worsening situation to better until we clean up our government. The numbers in this article are probably fudged beyond recognition. We the electorate here in America (myself included) do not have a clue as to just how bad it is. All we can see is it is really bad and ain't getting any better.

So, when a candidate stands up and says to me that we have to change this "business as usual" mentality, what I do know (and that is very little, trust me), shouts at me "yes". We have to stop the legal and illegal practices of corruption that are special interest groups, lobbying and influence peddling, and many other rotten (but legal and illegal) practices. If we don't, I cannot see much hope at all.

"Democracy without morality does not work".

John Quincy Adams

Well, Bush's war in Iraq may be a miserable failure, as is his war on terrorism. But Bush's war on middle class wealth has been an astounding success!

Between currency hyperination, tax cuts for millionaires, oil company subsidies, and the $10 billion per month Iraq war, the financial attack on the middle class seems more the result of calculated planning rather than incidental incompetence. I thinks Bush is of the mindset that it's not good enough for CEOs to be billionaires; everyone else must also be made poor.

It's time for HUGE cuts in government. Cut the government to it's two legitimate functions: defence and justice.

End all entitlements. Stop all the pork. End federally funded public education. Sell off all federal parks and lands. Fix the monetary supply, the gold standard would be fine. End social security. Get back to basics.

"The government which governs best, is the government which governs least." -Thomas Jefferson